Of Thirteen
by Xulei'ie'iender
Summary: Ancient stones are stolen, and old friends reappear...[Chapter 2] Two more H.I.V.E. students come along...
1. Jinxed Encounter

Jinx looked around, her slitted black pupils betraying her boredom. She sat on an empty crate, legs dangling, one of many lying in the dim alleyway between two old, brick, run-down apartments. The sorceress flashed out a pale hand and held it up in front of her face, pink eyes examining it, and, finding no flaws, mentally proclaimed herself truly uninterested in her current situation.

"They're taking much too long. I should've gone with them...they'll mess things up, as always."

Her pink hair bobbed along with her nodding head, supported into two thick, horn-like formations by stormy-blue metal bands, which glinted in the faint light. A similar band curled around her neck, this one more highly polished. A midnight colored gemstone, smoothly oval, was placed right beneath it on the pale skin.

"I could be doing something _so _much more interesting than this," she griped with a sniff, her arms lifting herself gracefully up into a headstand, the tips of her hair brushing the crate, and then she jumped with a bend and smooth snap of her arms and flipped onto the concrete, dark blue skirt and long sleeves rippling. Her platform shoes stirred up the smallest cloud of dirt as she landed, but made no sound.

Mechanical sounding movements and slight vibrations in the concrete beneath her feet announced the return of those she was expecting.

"Well?" she asked.

"We got 'em," a deep voice rumbled, a thin layer of jubilation painted on top of the disdain and disgust.

"Yeah, and I almost had to take out two snotblowin' fatties to cover for him," a nasally voice grumbled.

Four thick, dull grey metal robotic legs appeared over the alley's dead end wall, a small, bald child, wearing a green suit and gripping what looked like a video game controller, attached to them by means of a grey and green pack on his back. His black eyes shone wickedly through green goggles.

A massive hand suddenly appeared gripping the alley wall, and a giant of a teenager hauled himself over it, dropping with a heavy thud. He wore a sleeveless black shirt, studded with gold lumps on the edge, and black pants, his hair a dark brown and shoulder long. He held a sack in his hand.

"Did the Titans show?" Jinx inquired.

"Yes," Mammoth intoned.

"We beat 'em off fast enough, those pitsniffers. Crudded their tracking device, too."

"They still could've followed you, Gizmo," Jinx pointed out impatiently, slender hands on her hips. "You made sure not to come straight here, right?"

"Well- aw crud!" Gizmo shrieked, the metal legs scuttling madly to avoid the angry, hot barrage of green energy balls that screamed towards him. Both Jinx and Mammoth jerked their heads up, Jinx with an angry snarl.

"Teen Titans, attack!" they heard an all-too familiar voice cry. Starfire was already hovering in the air above the alleyway, and her eyes glowed a bright emerald green as she hurled more starbolts.

Gizmo withdrew his metal legs and sprouted wings from his jetpack. He pressed a button and flew swiftly, avoiding the bolts of energy.

A jadeite colored falcon shrilled and dove down in the alley, wings tight to its body. Gizmo whizzed away from it, the bird moving too fast to turn in pursuit. It angled its wings slightly and went for the stationary Jinx

Jinx back flipped elegantly out of the falcon's way with a laugh as Gizmo fired a well-timed laser beam that clipped the bird's tail. Beast Boy gave a piercing screech, lost control, and pummeled into the concrete. He transformed back into his elf-like form and was silent. Gizmo let out a rough laugh of triumph and swiftly flew up into the cloudy sky to take on Starfire.

> > >

Mammoth had charged out on the deserted street only to be knocked down by the mass of gleaming blue and silver mechanics and dark brown skin that was Cyborg. Mammoth had risen quickly, and threw a punch at the Titan that made the air whistle. The android backed away and his right arm transformed smoothly into a cannon, which glowed sapphire, and fired a sonic blast at the steroid-pumped giant.

Mammoth roared and dodged, going in for another punch. Cyborg gripped it with his two titanium arms, having transformed the cannon again, and the two wrestled, grunting in anger, the Titan unable to change back his arm for another blast and Mammoth unable to gain the upper fist.

"Fatebender, I could use a little help!" the former H.I.V.E. student snarled.

"Oh, elephant needs a little wish of _good fortune_?" a wicked voice hissed. A flash of jagged pink light impacted the concrete behind the metal Titan's feet, which immediately cracked and shifted. He let out a cry of surprise, slipped, and then was punched down. He groaned, and then saw the pink-haired Jinx smiling sweetly down at him, appearing from nowhere.

"Sorry, _Stone,_" she laughed, and stomped on his face with her black platform shoe.

Mammoth, beside her, was then abruptly encased in a shimmering ice, two halves of a black and yellow disk next to his frozen feet.

Jinx dodged another two disks thrown at her which opened near Mammoth's cold form and created tall pillars of silver ice.

"Uhngh!" The enchantress was then violently impacted in the back by a crate surrounded by a black aura, the edges inversed into white.

The black lifted from it as Jinx slowly got up and turned to face Raven floating in the middle of street, her blue hood shadowing her calm face, her arms enveloped in her black power, ready for attack.

Robin was in the mouth of the alleyway, balancing on the top of his metal staff. He yelled and snatched his staff from under him, leaping into a charge. The dark girl began to chant, the edges of her power glowing with fierce white light.

Jinx rubbed her arm where some of the skin had been scraped, and then flung her hands out, glowing pink, eyes narrowed.

"RAAUGH!"

> > >

"Eep!" In the sky over the abandoned apartment buildings, Starfire found it hard to control her flight as eight Gizmos, only one not holographic, spun quickly around her, launching laser missiles at her. Her red hair swirled as she attempted to evade all of the yellow-glowing shots. Her purple boot was singed. Her eyes glowed in growing anger.

"That was not very _nice_!" she growled. "HAA!" Twin jets of green energy shot out at one of the Gizmos- it flickered out of existence with a laugh and was replaced with two more.

"Too bad, you ugly Barbie!"

She shrieked as a laser ball hit her shoulder, releasing uncontrolled eyebeams that happened to impact one of the real midget's wings.

Gizmo let out a childish yell and plummeted down, then caught hold of his common sense and fidgeted with a few buttons on his controller, his devilish smile back. The four metal legs sprouted from his pack again, and he landed hard on an apartment's roof.

He cackled and began to fire once more, but was jolted when a jaguar took one of the legs in its teeth and, with a massive heave, ripped it off.

Gizmo wailed, and then merely cracked another crooked smile, adjusted a few joysticks and a leg swiveled about on the back to balance the other remaining two.

"Can't beat me, nyeah nyeahn!"

Four guns appeared out of Gizmo's pack, with ominous clicking sounds as they pointed both to Starfire and Beast Boy, who had changed to normal appearance.

"That's not good- waahhaAAAAHH!" Beast Boy screamed as a swarm of tight, small energy balls charged straight at him. He morphed into an agile hummingbird, his wings whirring, to fly away.

"Ha, that's right, you ugly snots!" Gizmo laughed insanely as his guns kept firing.

"You are a very- EEP- mean, rude, and disorderly child!" Starfire reprimanded, and then shot off a starbolt at Gizmo's jetpack, frying all the circuitry.

The legs and his controller began to crackle, blue electricity sparking all around them.

"Whaaa?" he squealed.

"HA! Yeah, go Starfire!" Beast Boy had reverted to elfin form to pump his arm in exuberance, watching Gizmo fall to the ground (roof, really) with glee plastered all over his face.

"Then we are victorious in this skirmish, indeed," she giggled, watching Beast Boy taunt the miniature foe, who spat back rather rude words. Her eyes swiveled down to the street- she gasped at what she saw.

"Beast Boy! It is apparent that our friends are in a grim situation. They will be requiring our assistance!" She shot down towards the angry battle between her two conscious friends (Cyborg's circuitry glinting from where he lay on the street) and the newly thawed Mammoth and acrobatic Jinx. Starfire's hand shimmered with her green fury.

The shapeshifter swiveled around in his sneakers, peered over the edge of the roof, and gasped as well.

He then gargled as the fingers of two small, slightly chubby hands gripped him tight around his skinny neck and squeezed. He squirmed, twisted, and then became angry. With an olive blur, he turned into a massive gorilla. Gizmo immediately lost his grip and fell back onto the concrete roof. He wailed in absolute terror as Beast Boy gripped his hands into one mighty fist and brought them down, the air around them whistling- and stopped a few centimeter's from the midget's nose.

Gizmo fainted.

Beast Boy reverted to his normal form to allow himself a short few moments of laughter and an "Oh yeah, who's good? Beast Boy, you're good! Whoo!" before he turned into a crow of dark forest green and circled downwards to the battle raging on the street.

> > >

"RAAUGH!" Jinx released two pulsing surges of her bewitchment that sped towards the two bird Titans.

"Azarath, metrion, zinthos," Raven intoned calmly, and a thick black shield materialized in front of her form. The hex was deflected back at Jinx, who brought up her hands in front of her with a swoosh of her long blue sleeves, and absorbed the power easily, her eyes glowing lavender momentarily.

"Augh!" she grunted, tripped forward by an unanticipated swing of Robin's staff. As he swung it at her again she gripped it with one hand, still down on her knees, and it was neatly sliced in half with a small hex.

The two halves of the staff were immediately shot at her, colors inversed into black and white, while Robin dove in with blurred punches. Jinx's sleeve was cut by one of the halves, and with a quick back flip managed to avoid the others. She threw her arms up protectively against Robin's rapid punches, and was pushed backwards continually until she was up against the brick wall of another apartment, across the street from the alleyway she had been sitting. She spied the sack- sitting there limply on a crate in the shadows. It took a split second to hatch a plan when her eyes caught sight of Mammoth, still inside the ice.

Jinx ducked, Robin's latest punch slamming into the apartment wall, and was halfway towards the frozen statue of her giant comrade when a large sharp black projectile rocketed towards her. She ducked, and then dodged another, and managed to just barely avoid a third. The angry sorceress prepared to send a stinging curse at Raven, but was frustrated when a disk exploded in the air in front of her and sent smoke in the air.

"Today will _not _be your lucky day," she snarled, grimacing terribly. Jinx charged up her hands briefly, and then proceeded to throw her enchantments in all directions. They cut through the smoke, their light casting eerie shadows upon the clouds of darkness. She heard random cracking of cement and brick- but no cries of pain or sharp shattering of ice.

Her body was suddenly in a shadow.

"Huh?" Jinx looked up and immediately fell as Robin's staff (he has two? Jinx thought subconsciously) whacked her down, having jumped over the smoke cloud to attack. She rolled over to avoid another lunge of his staff, then swung up her leg and tripped him.

By now, the smoke had dissipated- she could see Raven chanting, her entire body flickering in the color black and the outline of white. That couldn't be good. She fired a series of hexes at Robin, still down on the concrete, who rolled and squirmed to dodge them. Just a distraction, she reasoned to herself, then turned her attention to Mammoth.

Jinx scrutinized his frozen form for two seconds, calculating, and then fired three small hexes at him- they shaved of huge chunks of ice off his form.

A moment later, shards of ice went flying as the ice broke around him. Jinx obliterated the ones that had flown towards her- through the corners of her fuchsia eyes she saw Robin take cover under his cape and Raven throw a shield over herself. Mammoth looked extremely…wet. Jinx practically flew over to him and hissed, "We're getting out of here. We can't risk loosing what we got."

Mammoth was about to answer with a biting remark when a flurry of starbolts streaked towards them both, mostly hitting the huge chunks of ice around Mammoth, which either melted or splintered into chips that spun into the air. Jinx hop skipped away, taunting the flame-headed Tameranian. "A little bad luck, maybe?"

A black aura cloaked her ankles and then lifted her upside-down in the air.

"Witch!" Jinx managed to spit, before she was knocked into Mammoth, who had been lifting a boulder of ice to throw. They tumbled into the asphalt, and as both started to rise they were blasted down yet again by a shot from Cyborg's sonic cannon. Theye were still.

"Boo-yah!" he hooted, waving his arm in the air.

"Yeah, go Cyborg!" Beast Boy cried upon transforming into normal form, sitting on his friend's shoulder. "That was one nice shot!"

"Where's Gizmo?" Raven inquired, voice blank.

"Yeah, I didn't see him," Robin echoed, sounding somewhat concerned. He was brushing a few shards of ice off his black and yellow cape.

"I believe he is now on the roof of the apartment where he was disabled by one of my starbolts fired at his pack of gadgetry whereupon he attempted to suffocate Beast Boy by the compression of his windpipe but fainted in the result of fear of being pummeled by Beast Boy's giant gorilla form and so…is still there, I think," Starfire piped up brightly.

"Yeah…that kinda really hurt," Beast Boy moaned, rubbing his neck slightly. Cyborg shrugged him off his shoulder jokingly.

"Ow! That was my tailbone! That hurt worse," he mumbled, shooting a vengeful look at his buddy.

Robin had walked over to the mouth of the alley and was holding up the sack. "This must be what they stole from the museum," he mused.

At this, Jinx stood up, eyes glowing a menacing dark pink, nearly red, her pale fists curled as she screamed, "No! It's ours!"

"Cruddy booger-eaters!" a high-pitched voice shrilled, and then ten missiles rocketed down from three stories and exploded into the asphalt of the street, smoke billowing everywhere from the points of impact. The Titans coughed and wheezed at the sudden attack.

Jinx got up and seized Mammoth's thick wrist (half of it, in actuality) with her two thin but strong hands, and pulled him to a standing position. The tall teenager picked up the sack from where Robin had dropped it, and then allowed Jinx to drag him out of the smoke and into the alley.

Gizmo flew down on two metal wings, an ugly expression on his face. "I can't believe it took me _that long_ to wake up," he griped.

"Let's just hurry up and get out of here before the smoke clears," Mammoth grunted. "We wouldn't want them finding what we've got in this, especially when it took Gizmo and I so much effort to steal." He shook the bag slightly to prove his point.

"Yes. We're going right now," said Jinx hurriedly, and after seizing the sack from her ally's grip she broke into a run and vaulted over the tall alley wall, followed by the two others.

> > >

"I can't _believe _I let them get away!" Robin slammed his fist down on the kitchen table. His green gloves were cut and exposed his knuckles. Starfire hovered near him, her hopeful attitude lending her flight.

"Robin, it is not solely your fault…I do think it because we did not endeavor quite as hard as we perhaps should have, but I cannot be certain. Please do not take the all the blame unto your spirits, I think it would make it feel quite heavy and burdened." Her eyes were bright but the gleam faded as the Titans' leader did not respond. Starfire's boots touched the carpet once more. Her green eyes swiveled over to the couch, where Beast Boy was cringing from a Raven growing steadily more frustrated, quite clearly wanting to get back to reading the book sitting next to her.

"I can't heal your neck properly if you keep on squirming like that," she said calmly, though there was a thin glaze of her impatient tone on it.

"But your healing thingy tingles and my throat doesn't like tingles!" Beast Boy cried in desperation.

Raven rolled her violet eyes, drawing the action out. "I thought you said you wanted your throat healed."

"Well, yes, but- but it _tingles_!"

The girl sighed. "Fine then, I guess you'll have to forfeit tonight's ice cream, then."

A dreamy look came over Beast Boy as he thought of dessert, and a little trickle of saliva came out of his open mouth. Raven looked away in absolute disgust.

"Heal me! Ice cream!"

A pale blue glow slightly akin to her friend's starbolts surrounded her pale hand, and then she directed it to Beast Boy's neck.

It tingled a bit roughly, as he had predicted, but then a soothing coolness came and overshadowed the prickling sensation.

"Thanks, Raven!" the shapeshifter yipped. "Ice cream, baby!" He rushed off to the refrigerator.

Raven shook her head, then picked up her book and continued her reading in blissful peace, besides Robin's mutterings and Starfire's sweet consolations, as well as Beast Boy's gobbling of…soybean ice cream.

"You know how nasty that stuff is for you, man?" Cyborg's voice broke through the relative quiet.

"Hey, it's better than _meat_!"

"Don't diss the meat, BB, it's good for you, protein and all that good stuff." He strode over to the fridge himself and took out a giant sandwich with beef sticking out of the sides.

"Dude, that is totally _nasty_!"

"No, it's meat!"

Starfire looked at the both of them, naturally curious. "But it is not purely meat, yes? For there is also the bread of the whole grains such that it is not entirely..."

The two boys stared at her.

And continued their argument with heated words.

The alien giggled and floated dreamily, and then attended to her self-appointed task of cheering up her friend Robin.

> > >

Gizmo and Mammoth both stared at what dangled from Jinx's grip in the dark warehouse. Light entered through one old, dusty window situated near the high roof, the object glinting sweetly.

"I told you it was worth it," her voice almost a purr, eyes wide in adoration. "We had studied them, back at H.I.V.E., remember?"

"Yes," Mammoth grunted, tensing up on where he sat on a barrel at the mere thought of the place. His memories were not altogether pleasant.

"How could I forget that awful poop-smelling place filled with butt-pickers and nose-sticker-uppers and booger-eaters-" the midget's rant was interrupted by a slam of a giant hand upon his face. Mammoth smiled cheesily to cover for the silence.

Gizmo wrenched his head free and whined, "Gimmie it, Jinx, I wanna see!"

Jinx tossed the object to the boy, who immediately squealed in delight and rubbed it viciously, turning his back to his friends as he "flew" it around in the air like an airplane in his grip, adding sound affects with the aid of his softly smoking jetpack. The pink-haired teen turned to Mammoth,mentally reprimanding Gizmo's childishness.

"And you got all of them, I assume?"

"The mueseum didn't have all thir-"

"I know. Out of the ones they had."

"Count them. They're all there."

"Unless one of those crud-snuffin' Titans junked them up in the fight!" Gizmo screeched.

"Now that would just be unlucky," Jinx giggled, reaching a slender hand in the bag and pulling out a looped string, passing through an iridescent black, oval gemstone with many waxy-gleaming faces. She turned it by the thick string, the stone gleaming in the light. The sorceress' reflection was not apparent in the gem because of its particular luster, but her two companions easily saw her sinister grin.

> > >

Whoo hoo ya'll, my first fanficcy...yeah…Anyway, comments and criticism (reviews XP) greatly appreciated, I'd really like to improve and all that (it might help me in writing class, too XDXD). I kinda forgot what both Gizmo and Mammoth look like, writing this off of memory, so sorry if I missed or changed a few things . I also deprived Robin of his puns. By the way, I hope you likes!

Xulei/Eventider, whichever XP


	2. Old Friends?

A.N.: I don't own Teen Titans, and this chapter is dedicated to RaventheAzerathian for being my first ever reviewer . Glomp. Sorry for being such a slow updater, I'm trying to actually think this through before writing it XP.

* * *

_Thwbooooom!_

"Oh, I've got you now!"

"Dude, that is so totally unfair! I know you pulled your little cheat code thing-"

"I don't even have a cheat book, B.B., that's such an unjustified and offensive statement upon my integrity it corrodes my metal heart."

"Well you could've downloaded it off the internet or something-"

"No I did not, I'm just better than you- HEY! What the… Robin you little bloodsucker, I'm gonna get you for that-"

"You can't, Cy, 'coz you're dead! _Peh heh heh heh_!"

Robin's triumphant (and wicked) laugh rang through the main room.

"Thanks Robin, he was really beating me-"

"_Muwahahahahah_!"

"No way…dude, that was _so_ totally unfair."

"I just kicked _both _your butts. Take that, Cyborg! Yeah, _baby_!" Robin cackled in triumph, throwing his video game controller down on the carpet like a football, like an athlete would in the event of a touchdown.

His two friends were both staring at the screen, at a complete loss for their usual angry words of retaliation.

It was the morning after the Titan's fight with the former H.I.V.E. students, and the boys Titans had been going at it on their most beloved Gamestation, wearing out their thumbs on those irresistibly bright little buttons.

Starfire had been sitting on the edge of their grey couch, watching the competition with utter thrill. Of course, she had been avidly cheering for Robin. The Tameranian felt slightly disappointed that the exciting game had finished, although the ending screen had been quite unanticipated, with all the… red substance that wasn't ketchup that pooled everywhere.

"This game of yours…it is indeed most gory," she proclaimed doubtfully.

"Oh, you haven't seen violent yet, Star!" Cy cried lovingly to his video game, despite his recent loss. "You just wait until you see…"

At the shocked look on her face, he amended himself hastily.

"Uhh, oh, I mean uh… this is nothing compared to the video games that we don't… own…?" he said, quite lamely. Starfire perked up again, happy her friends were (supposedly) not being exposed to too much blood.

Beast Boy had been angrily poking Robin for the past minute. "Duuuude, I want a rematch! I know you pulled one of those secret kung-fuuuu _whaaaaaaaaaa_ thingy movey thingys," he said madly, swishing his arms around in poor imitation of what Robin usually did in a confrontation.

"All right then, now you're both on," Robin said confidently, a smirk plastered on his face.

A few minutes later, Raven floated into the main room to find loud cheers, grunts, yells, and video game sound effects awaiting her arrival.

She blinked slowly.

"Aren't you supposed to be working with the museum catalogers to find out what was stolen?" she inquired of them, voiced raised slightly.

The noise got louder.

One purple eye twitched slightly in the shadow of her dark blue hood, and she levitated over to the kitchen and began making herself a cup of her usual herbal tea.

"BOO-YAH! Now I'm the one kickin' butt! Yeah, baby!" Cyborg yelled, while a miniscule black figure flew through the air on the giant television screen and crashed into a tree..

"I wish you congratulations on your success in the kicking of the behind of the bottom!" Starfire squealed in great enthusiasm.

Robin steamed.

Beast Boy was gaping at his dead character on the screen once more.

"May I play the game of the videos?" Starfire requested eagerly. Her warm-tone hands were clasped together in optimism.

"Sure, Star," the boys chorused, already picking their characters.

The alien yipped joyfully and jumped on the couch, between Robin and Beast Boy, and the controller bounced into her hands like a small puppy.

It took a few minutes for the boys to explain Starfire the controls.

The starting screen popped up as they finished selecting their combatants.

"Ready…FIGHT!" the game screamed.

The teens went at it with voraciousness. Raven wandered over and hovered, cross-legged, behind their heads, daintily sipping at her cup of tea.

"This should be amusing," she muttered to herself, a small smile on her face.

* * *

"I am so gloriously happy that I have actually been capable of winning the game of fighting with such ease!" Starfire tittered, dancing around in the air with her controller. The wire length ran out and she was, quite literally, pulled down to earth. 

"Dude…" Beast Boy was, once again, mourning the loss of the battle.

"Umm, Starfire?" Cyborg sweatdropped.

"…You were the first one to die," Robin admitted carefully and apprehensively. "I think I won…" He leaned close to both Cyborg and Beast Boy, hissing "Again!" in their ears.

They gawked at him for a bit, and then their heads sunk and they both pulled extremely sullen looks onto their faces.

The Tameranian looked at the boys with intrigue, slightly puzzled.

"Then the point of this game then is indeed not to lie down upon the earth in a pool of liquid that is the opposite color of my most favorite beverage?"

Raven chortled softly, head down. She was floating in a rather erratic way now. The now empty teacup was rolling on the carpet.

"First off, dudette, it's mustard, not a drink, and that there on the screen is blood, and the point of the game is to be the last one standing," Beast Boy explained, quite triumphant that he was actually better than someone in the game. "I think you got them mixed up…eh heh…heh…yeah…" He trailed off with a nervous laugh.

"Oh."

"So, uh, do you want to play again?" Cyborg half-heartedly asked.

At that moment, the giant window/screen flashed red twice and then showed a brief, noise-scattered clip of three figures, inside a vault filled with precious metals and stones, causing havoc. A bright pink, partially blinding light headed towards the screen, and the clip fizzled out into black. The window then flashed to a map, a blinking red dot flashing on the blue.

"Mammoth, Gizmo, and Jinx," Robin confirmed, his mask narrowed like the eyes beneath. "Bank robbery at the south end."

"Again?" Cyborg and Beast Boy groaned, dropping their controllers.

"Titans, go!"

At their leader's words, they all took off- Starfire took flight out of one of the windows, her Titan communicator out in her hand to allow her to easily find the coordinates of the raid. Beast Boy followed in the form of an olive green crow, nudging the window closed with his beak before he flapped after his alien friend. Raven teleported herself, Cyborg, and Robin down to the garage, any remnants of her power fading from the main room like eerie ebony mist.

* * *

Jinx twirled around, laughing as she dangled an expensive-looking sapphire necklace on the tip of one elegant finger, the gold chain dangling. She flashed a tiny wave of hex at it from her other hand- the blue gem glowed a bright purple as it was infused with the magic. 

A few seconds later it crumbled to the concrete floor, the pale blue shards slowly fading to a deathly red-stained brown.

Jinx looped the gold chain over her hand from where it had fallen on her wrist and tossed it carelessly away. She traced her finger carelessly around the iridescent black jewel strung about her own neck. _So worth the planning, _the witch thought cheerfully, and then looked curiously over at the other side of the vault, the floor strewn with debris of slabs of concrete, bars of gold and silver, as well as a multitude of jewels and coins.

Gizmo was stuffing a bag excitedly with all the coins his small hands could grab. . Mammoth was busy trying to heave an enormous stack of gold ingots into his massive arms- Jinx's pink eyes could easily see the shimmer of his hawk-eye crystal where it had been embedded into one of his gold bracers. Her grin glinted much like it.

"Having fun, boys?"

Gizmo's shrill laughter cut through the air.

"This is one of the best barf-brained ideas you've had for a long time! I love doing this!"

"Second that," Mammoth grunted heavily, with another heave, his ox-like stubbornness reigning.

"I don't…not really," the pink-haired girl hummed, twirling about with a great flourishing of her arms. Her two companions stared at her oddly.

"Because we can do…absolutely…_anything_…that…we…wish." She stopped spinning and placed her hands on her hips, a large smirk on her face.

Mammoth and Gizmo cheered, but their eyes boggled mightily when Jinx suddenly hurtled through the air past them and crashed into the concrete wall, and then fell limply back down to earth like a doll of cloth scraps soaked with oil.

"Whoever said that we'd let you?" a taunting voice rang out.

The two standing thieves turned to the entrance of the vault and their eyebrows twisted down in hate, clenching their teeth.

Robin's bo staff was extended in the follow-through of his powerful smack, a sarcastic looking smile on his face. A menacing looking leopard crouched next to him on his left, muscles tense beneath the glimmering emerald coat. On his right stood Cyborg, his arm extended as his white-blue sonic cannon, glowing ominously. Behind their leader hovered Starfire and Raven, the sorceress's arms inversely glowing, the alien's eyes and hands wreathed with her righteous green anger.

Jinx had staggered up next to her comrades, one hand clutching the side of her head, a deep, displeased frown evident. She pulled her hand away- red blood, half dry already, was smeared all over her fingers and palm. The girl tugged at a tendril of her hair, loosening it from the blue metal band, and stared at it. It had been darkened into a sinister looking color.

The Titans then heard her girlish giggle, high-pitched and sweet. They were taken aback, and took a few tentative steps back, weapons lowered and powers fading slightly, Beast Boy reverting back to normal form to stare at the others with a puzzled expression on his face, with absolutely no idea what was going on. His teammates' faces mirrored his- with the exception of the stony-faced Raven, who's midnight-colored eyes were narrowed with strong suspicion.

The villainess ceased her laughter and pretended to wipe a jovial tear from the corner of her eye, straightening up. Mammoth cracked his knuckles with a grin, and Gizmo clicked a few buttons which lit up as they touched them.

"That was _funny_," the cat-like enchantress declared. Her fingers flickered with pink energy as she put them together.

"It kind of tickled, too." She then drew her hands apart, the pink power stretching and curling with it, until a ball of crisscrossing beams of her bright curse was made and dangling from the fingertips of one of her hands.

"Wanna try again?"

She shot back a few feet, dust railing from her black platform shoes, as she threw the ball it at Robin. It sped silently, a disturbing red aura emanating outwards from the pink strands as it rocketed towards him.

The boy leapt agilely out of the way, shouting the command of "Titans, now! We need to take them down!" before he, Cyborg, and Beast Boy were blasted away from the ball's brutal point of impact, a cloud of crimson-tinted smoke and heat billowing outwards from it.

Starfire swooped forward and was firing a heated barrage of starbolts at a charging Mammoth, hoping to slow him down. They exploded with heavy smoke. She stopped hesitantly, hovering a few feet over the ground, but was shocked when he came barreling at her through the smoke, a tightly packed punch catching her in the stomach.

"Eeeyih!"

The alien grabbed his wrist with two hands that held furious strength, ignoring the throbbing pain in her gut, and attempted to throw him. However, despite her extraterrestrial might, she couldn't budge the giant. She frowned and gave another tug, seeming to remember he had not been this strong the last time she had battled him.

He grinned maliciously.

"Surprised?"

Starfire's green eyes widened as she was hoisted up by the shoulders, Mammoth obviously preparing to throw _her_ instead. She spoke in a slightly sad manner.

"I would indeed compliment you on your newfound strength, but you are not one of my friends."

The Tameranian wrenched one of her arms free and slammed him hard in the nose with the smooth green ornament on her wrist armor. He staggered back, disoriented, and was then encased in black power and tossed away into a pile of gold ingots, a few of the heavy bars jumping into the air before falling with ugly clinks onto the floor.

Starfire looked upwards and nodded in thanks at Raven, who hovered close to the ceiling above her, then the two split in opposite directions across the vault- Raven to assist Cyborg against an army of holographic Gizmos, Starfire flying to aid Robin in his battle against Jinx.

They both glimpsed, from the corner of their eyes, Beast Boy get up rather groggily from a deep indentation in the concrete floor, pink-edged burn marks visible in his face, and tackle an oddly swiftly recovered Mammoth in the form of a fierce velociraptor.

Robin had been blown away by the shuddering force of Jinx's spellball, but had managed to turn his fall into a carefully controlled tumble, and with a shove of his hand against the floor was able to jump upright again. He twirled about his staff and saw Jinx walking serenely towards him, hands glowing. The blood on the side of her head and face was dark and dry.

"Hey, birdy. Feel fast enough to fly?"

The witch swung her hands up and shot waves of shimmering pink hex at him, blue sleeves swooshing.

Robin gnashed his teeth and ran towards her, smashing his staff into the ground so he could jump over the bright spell, whipping it forward, and threw it at Jinx.

"Heh." Jinx neatly backed up to the edge of a large pile of silver ingots so the projectile struck an inch from her foot.

"Too slow."

Robin seized his staff from where it had sunken six inches into the concrete and tried various quick lunges at his opponent with it, but she dodged the blows effortlessly, back flipping and sidestepping, while carefully hopping over small pieces of rubble in her way.

Robin growled, feeling that his ability was being unnecessarily challenged, and swung the staff like a temperamental baseball player would a bat.

Jinx crouched down, the staff brushing the tips of her hair, and shot out a leg that immediately tripped her adversary.

"Ungh!"

The Titans' leader's air left him in one great rush, his chin banging on a gold bar, dropping his staff. He rolled over quickly as Jinx tossed a concentrated spell at him, creating a great flash in his eyes and chopping the gold neatly into two small bricks.

His hand went to his utility belt and he flung three exploding disks at Jinx. His position affected his aim- only one hit her, and it merely caught her shoulder, yet it still detonated loudly and let off a flash of orange light and grey smoke.

"Robin!"

Starfire landed next to him, and heaved him up by one of his sleeves and the back of his red shirt.

"My friend, are you too greatly injured to continue this conflict?" she asked him worriedly, green eyes overflowing with concern.

"I'm absolutely fine." Robin's jerked his arm away from her and took out two yellow and red birdarangs, ready for further combat.

Starfire bit her lip, but suppressed the urge to ask Robin a second time.

They saw Jinx jump out from the middle of the smoke cloud Robin's explosives had created. One of her decorative ruffled sleeves had been signed away, the remaining cloth on her shoulder rather tattered. She stood before them with her nose turned up in a haughty expression.

"Not exactly the ones to give up, are you?"

"WaaaaAAAAHGG!"

Robin had opened his mouth to give a harsh response when Gizmo shot between the two parties. He skidded against the ground before tumbling to a stop, his controller smoking, backpack crackling randomly. The small boy curled up, clutching his stomach with a moan.

"That'll teach you to MESS WITH MY CIRTUTRY!"

A glowering Cyborg appeared over a pile of tumbled coins, his sonic cannon ready to fire.

Raven floated next to him, yet her back was turned, seemingly occupied with helping Beast Boy with his slugfest against Mammoth, which was rapidly getting closer and closer to the others.

Jinx had taken advantage of both Robin and Starfire's moment of distraction.

"Eehp!"

"Aaggrh!"

The two had been hit with glowing pink hexes. Robin was knocked over, his birdarangs clattering to the floor. Starfire had stumbled to her knees, hugging her shoulders. They were both surrounded by an eerie crimson aura. The light seemed to lift off of them and manifest into wisps of ghost-like material, and then the red glow dove straight into the two Titan's chests.

"Yo!"

Cyborg angrily fired three successive sonic blasts at Jinx, and then rampaged forward with his fist curled for a punch.

Jinx curled over one shot, ducked under another, and side-stepped the last. She spread her arms wide and created a lattice of crisscrossing pink strands in front of her, glittering in a contrasting manner, innocent and yet quite ominous.

Cyborg stopped an inch before the threatening shield, almost leaning on the very tips of his metal boots, his titanium skin shining with the reflected hot pink light.

A deafening explosion then ripped through the air, following the flight of something large, black, brown, and gold. Salmon and crimson light burst outwards, highlighting the dark grey smoke that billowed from the collision.

A furious looking green bear with small patches of tattered fur lumbered from behind a tall pile of gold coins. He morphed back into his normal form, and then started walking slowly closer to the steadily dissipating smoke cloud. Raven lingered in the air behind Beast Boy, a flicker of deep thought in her violet eyes.

Robin and Starfire had finally recovered from Jinx's fierce curses. Robin stood with his staff in one hand, having retrieved it from the ground, his other hand clutching tiny, metallic-grey explosive spheres, ready to throw. Starfire's hands flickered lime green as her starbolts pulsed into existence.

Mammoth staggered out of the now thin smoke cloud, towards Robin and Starfire, Jinx standing on top of him, one foot each on his shoulders, perfectly balanced. Both looked like they were playing with dynamite and accidentally set it off, which, in a way, they had. Their faces were slightly blackened, and Mammoth's shirt had chalky looking pink crisscrossing marks on his black shirt, the remnants of Jinx's hex net. Mammoth looked indifferent- Jinx had a smirk on her face.

Gizmo soared up next to his companions on metal wings; a new jetpack attached to his back, a spare controller in his hands. His teeth were gnashed together and his green goggles were slightly steamed up.

"Hey, man! How many of those stupid backpacks you got?" Cyborg snarled, behind the trio. The visible circuitry had been blackened, the rest of his metal exterior with random black flares of ashes. Gizmo whirled around with a blaze of fire from his jetpack, and stuck out a tongue at Cyborg.

"Wouldn't you like to know, ya barf-brained sludge-sniffer!"

The Titans began to close in on the former H.I.V.E. trio. Jinx quickly leapt backwards off of Mammoth and flung hexes at Beast Boy and Raven.

Raven disappeared with a sigh of black smoke. The pink hex cut through plain air before exploding on contact with a wall.

The green changeling yelped and ducked, and then morphed into an ostrich that charged forward and gave Mammoth a mighty kick in the stomach as Cyborg fired his sonic cannon at the same time, cuffing Mammoth's arm.

Jinx jumped forward and delivered a few rapid kicks at Beast Boy, and although he towered almost seven feet tall, the short witch managed to get a couple hard blows in. A wildly thrown bar of gold, covered with black energy, then caught her leg and she stumbled and fell. One of her pale hands rose, and a sharp wave of hex emanated out from it and caught the bird's foot, causing Beast Boy to fall back hard onto the ground as well.

Robin and Starfire rushed to help him.

Gizmo was pressing buttons like a DDR maniac would stomp arrow pads, carefully directing missiles towards Cyborg, Robin, Starfire, and Raven, who had reappeared. He was careful to fly close to the ceiling so as to go unnoticed. With one short chuckle, he pushed a large yellow button centered on his control, clearly labeled "Fire".

_Click._

Red-tipped missiles that had been sprouting from his jetpack issued smoke and rocketed off to their targets, searing the air they cut through.

Three soared towards Raven, who had been throwing projectiles with her powers at Mammoth. She groaned inwardly as she saw them and raised her arms, a black shield forming easily from her hands.

The missiles screeched as they impacted, but did not explode. Instead, they ground their crimson noses into her protective screen, causing her to strain a bit with the effort.

"Azarath metrion zinthos!" she intoned darkly, and her power then enveloped the missiles themselves. She drew her controlling hand back and then flung it- the rockets reversed direction and aimed themselves at Gizmo, who squealed and started to fly around wildly in attempt to avoid them.

Cyborg aimed carefully when he saw five missiles heading for him, a few parts on his cannon-arm clicking and smoothly sliding back or forward as he adjusted it.

He fired five times, small and dense streaks of sonic waves flying at the incoming rockets.

They exploded with a violent bang.

"Boo-yah! WHOA-"

Mammoth had escaped from the chaotic melee that consisted of Jinx, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Robin, and was rushing up to Cyborg with his fists raised behind his head and interlocking to form a giant, pounding-efficient weapon.

He roared out a sound of rage, leaped up and prepared to bring his hands down on Cyborg's head.

BROOM.

A single, deep note reverberated through the vault as Mammoth struck an obsidian-black dome that had swiftly risen around Cyborg. He was thrown back slightly by his forceful impact, feet sliding.

"Thanks, Raven," Cyborg called to the azure-cloaked sorceress. She nodded, and then brought her hands in front of her as she prepared an attack, chanting quietly.

Gizmo hovered down next to the teenage giant, a few black specks of ash on his otherwise bald head, an ugly scowl on his face. Mammoth cracked his knuckles with a snarl, and then the two dashed forward with murderous intent.

Cyborg quickly altered the wavelength on his cannon and sent a flash of blue streaking towards the evil pair. Raven finished her spell and black warbled out of her hands, and then melded into the bright blue, reinforcing and strengthening it's power.

Mammoth and Gizmo halted and-

A flash of black and two eerie red glows-

Disappeared.

The blue-black sound waves rocketed on and heavily hit Beast Boy in his rhinoceros form, who had been taking rapid stabs at a laughing Jinx. He flew into a pile of concrete rubble and fell onto the floor in his normal form, still.

Jinx looked about in surprise at the sudden disappearance of her two companions, her sweet pink eyes narrowed and her pupils large. She whipped around to stare at Cyborg and Raven, who both had confused looks on their faces, although the dark one's expression much less prominent.

They pointed to each other swiftly- Cyborg in all honest confusion, thinking that perhaps a wild spurt of Raven's power had somehow spirited away their two enemies. Raven held up her pale finger as well, yet somehow the gesture dripped silent sarcasm.

Suddenly there was an odd gust of wind passing through the still room, whipping up scattered, light necklaces of silver and bronze.

_Wiiiiiiiiiishhhhh_.

A breath of bitterly cold wind-

A dissolving of black nothingness into reality-

And six figures suddenly reappeared between the three that were left standing: Jinx, Raven, and Cyborg.

Their eyes bugged slightly.

Mammoth and Gizmo were standing next to each other, the stunted child barely up to his friends knees. Mammoth's arms were crossed, Gizmo's expression half resentful, half gleeful.

Starfire and Robin were spread out at their feet, both out cold- Cyborg and Raven stiffened.

And on either side of the aforementioned four stood two odd looking figures.

The first, closer to Jinx, was a tall, slim teenaged girl with skin porcelain white. Her hair was covered by a silver helm that came with a point down to the middle of her forehead and up on both sides to the bottom of her cheeks, swirling designs etched into it and inlaid with some strange black metal. She had two armbands of the same material, as well as similar metal bracers and anklets. The girl's shirt was red and cropped at the shoulders, and turned a royal blue as it rose up thickly to encircle her neck. Her short skirt was the same hue of blue, and a metal belt hung crookedly above it. Her feet were bare.

The oddest thing about this individual, however, was- well, in actuality, there were two odd things, if her appearance wasn't strange enough already.

The first was that her eyes glowed with an intense, eerie pale yellow, obscuring their real color and the whites around it, if there was any of that at all. The light highlighted her face oddly, her stoic expression contrasting greatly with the life that was blazing from her eyes.

The second was the two stunted white angel wings that spread out from her shoulder blades, too small to lend true flight. They shimmered with a faint white light, as if hope was enclosed within them and was struggling to get out.

The other figure resembled the girl in that he was tall and about the same age, but he was also unnaturally skinny, if anything could be inferred from the small width of his tattered black cloak. Its ragged ends lay on the floor, the cloth cut long so his entire body was hidden. There was a smooth, polished, dark grey circle clasp holding it around his shoulders. He also wore a helmet, except it was a dull black and pointed high on two sides, so that his head resembled a bat's. It reached down in a point to cover his nose. The boy's skin was also pale and light, but tinged slightly grayish-purple.

Like his companion, the teenager's eyes glowed as well, but with a dead crimson hue. They were slanted and narrow, but the light emanating from them was still quite strong. His eyes combined with his physical appearance made him look as if he was Raven's older cousin in demonic form.

"You!" both Jinx and Cyborg exclaimed at the same time, both accusingly, but the former with more familiarity and delighted surprise, while the latter with a short, stinging anger inside of him.

"Yes-" The girl said, her voice slightly low and melodious.

"Us," The boy followed after, his voice taking on a mournful, regretful tone.

Raven edged a bit closer to Cyborg. "Who are these two?" she inquired quietly, staring at the black-cloaked boy with a shadow of nervousness in the corner of her vast mind.

She felt a tug of air passing by her face.

"I am Lunarwind," the girl hummed immediately, closing her eyes briefly.

"They call me Shadowwing," the boy whispered, barely audible despite the polite silence those that were awake were giving him. "We are siblings."

"I hope you don't mind us taking our old friends here away for a chat," Lunarwind simpered with a wink of one shining yellow eye at Cyborg and Raven.

"Yes," Shadowwing said hesitantly, glancing at Jinx with a shade of unease momentarily before shifting his eyes back to Raven and Cyborg, and then to his sister. "Old…friends."

"And just what makes you think you can just-" the half-metal man began to protest vehemently while firing up his sonic cannon.

"Unless you want _your_ friends to come with us, of course," the dark boy cut in quietly. He lifted a black-gloved forearm from his cloak and gestured smoothly to both Starfire and Robin in turn, the two Titans lying on the ground with pained expressions. He didn't seem particularly pleased about the idea- his mouth was set in a small line.

"We'd be happy to take the green one, as well," Lunarwind giggled sweetly. "He's sorta kai-uuute!"

All the males awake in the room twitched. Raven shook her head.

Jinx looked like she was about to laugh when something banged into her back and sent her flying towards the group. Mammoth threw out a muscular arm and caught her by the leg.

Beast Boy stood there, in his human form, eyes narrowed.

"Let go of our friends!" he snarled, gloved fists curled.

"I would do so most gladly," muttered Shadowwing. He reached a hand to his sister, who took it with her own almost-white one. The dark boy reached out his other arm and it extended with a black nothingness, shadow, it seemed. Lunarwind stretched out her free arm as well, eyes closed serenely, and the Titan's felt a breeze stirring. The shadow was stretched thin by the wind and thrown over the heads all the former H.I.V.E. students, and then it dissolved with vertical streaks of black and white, until only Starfire was left lying where they had all been in the vault. The whole process had taken a few short seconds.

"Robin!" Cyborg yelled quickly.

A black shadow reappeared, and solidified into Shadowwing clutching the Boy Wonder's green sleeve, Robin hanging limply from the bat-like boy's firm grip.

"My bad," he shrugged, letting go of the Titans' leader so that he fell to the concrete floor with a thump. Shadowwing threw his cloak over himself and disappeared.

* * *

This is extremely tedious, boring, annoying, difficult, and unnecessarily long (5012 words without either of my author's notes) to read. I need critiques…and seriously badly /. They would be undyingly appreciated. 

Edit: Tweaked because of mistakes.


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